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Justin met Ren at the Archstone Plaza, not because that’s where he and the party will meet, but because that place is a hub that will take them to where the party usually stays to practice.

The Archstone Plaza also works like a teleportation hub, which connects the whole Letter Kingdom. It could be used to travel to other cities, too.

Justin took him to the Quaint City (Q-City), where the party was formed and stayed.

The Quaint City was on the outer edge of the kingdom, just several mountains away from the neighboring kingdom. Quaint City felt like a peaceful province from what little he had seen of it. Unlike Central City, this one wasn’t filled with concrete jungles and colorful neon lights.

Quaint City looks less advanced but feels like home. It’s humble, welcoming, and endearing in its own way.

That said, this doesn’t mean that the light of technological advancement never reached this place. It does; there just wasn’t as much evidence of it, like at Central City.

Justin led Ren to a place near the dungeon gates called the Rosewater Inn.

He initially thought that he’d meet with the party here, but no. Justin led him straight to the second floor. They walked past the rooms all the way to the end of the hall where the ’staff room’ was.

Justin pushed the doors open, and they revealed a passage that led them to another part of the inn inaccessible to others.

There was a secured door at the end. Justin entered the passcode and had his eye scanned before the doors opened up for them. On the other side of that door is another room attached to a building where they’re really supposed to be.

’Green Tea Party’—that’’s what the large plaque on the wall said, and Ren assumed that it’s this party that invited him to come over and hang out for a bit.

"Welcome to the Green Tea Party base," Justin welcomed him as warmly as he could. "If you’re weirded out by the name, it’s fine. It does sound weird. This party was formed when its leader invited the members out for a drink to form a party. And since they’re underage and aren’t allowed to drink alcohol, they settled for green tea instead. They thought that it was ’iconic,’ as the youth nowadays call it, and decided to adopt the name. Hence, the Green Tea Party was formed."

Ren actually didn’t mind the name. As someone who’s familiar with the story of this world, he had seen parties with much weirder names than this one. Green tea is actually pretty tame, to be honest, and probably common too.

The GMU doesn’t mind parties with the same names, so long as they’re not within the same city. If they were, it’s first come, first served. Or the teams with complications could settle it themselves.

"The team should be doing their drills right now. Come, I’ll take you there." Justin gestured for Ren to follow, so he did.

They passed through two hallways before coming out of the building. And there in an open space, he saw four people sparring with each other. Two males and two females.

It’s boys versus girls.

Justin paused, and so did Ren. They were hidden, but they had a clear view of the sparring below.

"The boy with the bowl-cut is Derek; the one with brown hair is Jules. The girl with the auburn hair is Jennifer, Jen for short. And the girl with the black hair is Kaycee," Justin stated.

Ren nodded and continued watching.

Derek and Jen were locked in a fierce competition. Jen uses a sword, while Derek uses a pair of daggers.

Their steel clashed and released sparks as they sliced each other. Ren couldn’t tell whether they hated each other or if this was just their usual routine. But he sensed some tension in there.

The one thing he immediately noticed was their chakra properties.

Derek’s dark blue chakra and Jen’s scarlet-tinged chakra. This indicates that the techniques these two practiced had a deep influence on them, so much so that they were now tainted in their chakra and were now making him biased towards the same attributes.

In contrast to their fierce confrontation, Jules’s and Kaycee’s battle feels like they’re dancing around each other.

Jules holds a sword and a shield, and Kaycee uses bows and arrows.

She was sniping at him from a distance, and he was trying to catch her. However, Ren could instantly see a lot of hesitation and indecisiveness in their movement and intent.

It’s like they’re afraid of hurting each other. Like one wrong move from any of them would be enough to cripple the other.

Ren could understand the wariness, but there’s just too much of it, which makes the sparring pretty useless.

Their fight was the opposite of Derek’s and Jen’s.

To be fair, Kaycee’s got good accuracy. She aims for Jules’ shield, and she’s hitting it more times than not, around the same area that she previously shot too.

She tends to do it to keep her distance away from Jules, who was pursuing her to close the distance.

As for Jules, well...he couldn’t say much just yet. Saying that he’s good at raising his shield at opportune moments would sound like an insult, actually, so he reserved his judgment for now.

His gaze gravitated towards Derek’s and Jen’s fight.

Those two were at each other’s throats for some reason he doesn’t know.

Ren could almost tell that this isn’t normal sparring. There’s resentment in there somewhere, and neither was willing to give the other an inch.

Jen’s swordsmanship was decent at best, but she does have that fire-attributed chakra that applies additional heat to her steel, making it more difficult to take on directly. That’s enough to cover most of her inadequacy at least.

However, Derek was unfazed by the heat of her attacks. He didn’t even give them a second glance since they tend to slide off him.

Ren was unsure for now whether it’s the shadow attribute or the darkness attribute since both start at dark blue. However, the influence of either element was enough to make Derek very elusive.

He dodges things that should hurt him as if they were nothing. The heat of Jen’s chakra also doesn’t seem to have an effect on him.

"Seen enough?" Justin asked on the side after allowing Ren to observe the team.

Ren nodded. He didn’t say a word; he didn’t feel like saying anything for now.

Whether Justin noticed this or not, he certainly didn’t comment on it either.

Instead, he walked away from their hidden place with Ren on tow, and this time, he made a deliberate noise to disrupt the team’s practice.

The first ones to notice them were Derek and Kaycee. The former because he’s alert, and the latter because she saw them coming out first.

Jen reacted a beat later when he noticed Derek pausing to look at something, and Jules was last because the noises around him stopped.

"Come here, you guys," Justin called them over once he brought Ren down to the field.

The four put their weapons away and wiped their sweat as they approached. Once they were close enough, Justin made the introductions.

"Everyone, this is Soren Marek Vire, Ren for short. He’s a prospective member, so he’ll be joining you for this week for preliminary team building."

"Be nice, please," Justin looked at them sharply as if reminding them of something.

He then turned to Ren, and his mood switched to a better one. "I know you’ve got your reservations, but give them a chance. They might surprise you."

"Anyway, I’ll leave you here for now. You guys hang out and do whatever you want aside from killing each other or any illegal stuff."

After saying this, Justin unceremoniously left, leaving Ren there standing awkwardly in front of the team.

The team who’s now staring at the exposed tattoos on his arms and neck.

Ren obviously caught the reactions they tried to hide. Jen’s the most obvious and most predictable. It took one look at his tattoos, and she immediately branded him as a gangster and delinquent. The disapproval became very obvious in her eyes.

Kaycee and Jules looked intimidated. Derek was the only one who didn’t look repulsed. If anything, Ren had a suspicion that Derek found his tats cool.

"You, come up and fight me," Jen declared before taking her sword out once again.

"Jen!!" Derek immediately glared at her as if he were trying to remind her of some sort of secret agreement.

"Save it, Derek," Jen sneered. "I don’t know what you’re thinking by inviting someone like this here, but I’ll make this quick."

She then stared fiercely at Ren and said, "I don’t know who you are, and frankly, I don’t care. You want to be our new member? Fine! Defeat me first, and I’ll let you join."

Derek was about to protest, but before he could say anything, Ren replied.

"Cool. I’m down."

Not even five minutes after the fight started, Jen lay on the floor, defeated and almost crying in frustration. Her sword is embedded on the wall somewhere.

Ren was crouching before her with that amused smile on his face while Derek, Jules, and Kaycee sat on the bench slackjawed at what they just witnessed.

"So? Am I in?"